University of Virginia Library

19. CHAPTER XIX.
A FALLING STAR.

ZELL slept most of the day. She had reached
that point where she did not want to think.
On hearing Edith say that she would go to New
York on Monday, a sudden and strong temptation assailed
her. Impulsive, but not courageous, abounding
in energy, but having little fortitude, she found
the conditions of her country life growing unendurable.
Van Dam seemed her only refuge, her only
means of escape. She soon lost all hope of their
sustaining themselves by work in Pushton. Her
uncurbed nature could wait patiently for nothing,
and as the long, idle days passed, she doubted, and
then despaired, of any success from Edith's plans.
She harbored Van Dam's temptation, and the consciousness
of doing this hurt her womanly nature,
and her hard, reckless tone and manner was the
natural consequence. Though she said to herself,
and tried to believe,

“He will marry me—he has promised again and
again.”

Still, there was the uneasy knowledge that she
was placing herself and reputation entirely at his
mercy, and she long had known that Van Dam was
no saint. It was this lurking knowledge, shut her

eyes to it as she might, that acted on her nature like
that petrifying influence existing in some places,
which tends to turn all to stone.

And yet, Van Dam's temptation had more to
contend with in her pride than her moral nature.
Everything in her education had tended to increase
the former, and dwarf the latter. Her parents had
taken her to the theatre far oftener than even to the
fashionable church on the avenue; from the latter
she carried away more ideas about dress than anything
else. From a child she had been familiar
with the French school of morals, as taught by the
sensational drama in New York. Society, that will
turn a poor girl out of doors the moment she sins,
will take her at the most critical age of her unformed
character, night after night, to witness plays in which
the husband is made ridiculous, but the man who
destroys purity and home-happiness, is as splendid
a villain as Milton's Satan. Mr. Allen himself had
familiarized Zell's mind with just what she was
tempted to do, by taking her to plays as poisonous
to the soul as the malaria of the Campagna at Rome
to the body. He, though dead, had a part in the
present temptation of his child, and we unhesitatingly
charge many parents with the absolute ruin
of their children, by exposing them, and permitting
them to be exposed, to influences that they know
must be fatal. No guardian of a child can plead
the densest stupidity for not knowing that French
novels and plays are as demoralizing as the devil
could wish them to be; and to constantly place young

passionate natures, just awakening in their uncurbed
strength, under such influences, and expect them to
remain as spotless as snow, is the most wretched absurdity
of our day. Society brings fire to the tow,
the brand to the powder, and then lifts its hand to
hurl its anathema in case they ignite.

But Mr. Allen sinned even more grievously in
permitting a man like Van Dam to haunt his home.
If now one of the lambs of his flock suffered irretrievably,
he would be as much to blame as a shepherd
who daily saw the wolf within his fold. Mr. Allen was
familiar with the stories about Van Dam, as multitudes
of wealthy men are to-day with the character
of well-dressed scoundrels that visit their
daughters. Some of the worst villains in existence
have the entrée into the “best society.” It is pretty
well known among men what they are, and fashionable
mammas are not wholly in the dark. Therefore,
every day, “Angels that kept not their first
estate” are falling from heaven. It may not be the
open, disgraceful ruin that threatened poor Zell, but
ruin nevertheless.

After all, it was the undermining, unhallowed
influence of long association with Van Dam that now
made Zell so weak in her first sharp stress of temptation.
Crime was not awful and repulsive to her.
There was little in her cunningly-perverted nature
that revolted at it. She hesitated mainly on the
ground of her pride, and in view of the consequences.
And even these latter she in no sense realized,
for the school in which she had been taught showed

only the flowery opening of the path into sin, while
its terrible retributions were kept hidden.

Therefore, as the miseries of her condition in the
country increased, Zell's pride failed her, and she
began to be willing to risk all to get away, and when
she felt the pinch of hunger she became almost desperate.
As we have said, on Edith's naming a day
on which she would be absent on the forlorn mission
that would only put off the day of utter want a little
longer, the temptation took definite shape in Zell's
mind to write at once to Van Dam, acceding to his
shameful conditions.

But, to satisfy her conscience, which she could
not stifle, and to provide some excuse for her action,
and still more, to brace the hope she tried to cherish
that he really meant truly by her, she wrote,

“If I will meet you at the boat Monday evening,
will you surely marry me? Promise me on your
sacred honor.”

Van Dam muttered, with a low laugh, as he read
the note,

“That's a rich joke, for her to accept such a proposition
as mine, especially after all that has happened,
and still prate of `sacred honor.'”

But he unhesitatingly, promptly, and with
many protestations assured her that he would, and
at once prepared to carry out his part of the programme.

“What's the use of half-way lies?” he said, carelessly.

On Monday Edith again took the early train

with the valuables she designed disposing of. Zell
had said indifferently,

“You may take anything I have left except my
watch and chain.”

But Laura had insisted on sending her watch,
saying, “I really wish to do something, Edith. I've
left all the burden on you too long.”

Mrs. Allen sighed, and said, “Take anything
you please.”

So Edith carried away with her the means of
fighting the wolf, hunger, from their doors a little
longer. But if she had known that a more cruel
enemy would despoil her home in her absence, she
would have rather starved than gone.

Laura was reading to her mother when Zell put
her head in at the door, saying,

“I am going for a short walk, and will be back
soon.”

She hastened to the office at which she told Van
Dam to address her, and found his reply. With
feverish cheeks, and eyes in which glowed excitement
rather than happiness, she read it as soon as
alone on the road, and returned as quickly as possible.
Her mind was in a wild tumult, but she
would not allow herself one connected thought. She
spent most of the day in her room preparing for her
flight. But when she came down to see Hannibal
about their meagre lunch, he said in some surprise
and alarm,

“Oh, Miss Zell, how burnin red your cheeks be!
You'se got a ragin feber, sure 'nuff. Go and lie

right straight down, and I'se see to ebery ting. I'se
been to de willage and got some tea. A man guve
it to me as a sample, and I telled him we'se like our
tea mighty strong, so you'se all hab a cup of tea
to-day, and to-night Miss Edie 'll come back with
a heap of money.”

“Poor old Hannibal,” said Zell, with a sudden
rush of tenderness. “I wish I were as good as you
are.”

“Lor bress you, Miss Zell, I isn't good. I'se
kind of a heathen. But somehow I feels dat de
Lord will bress me when I steals for you alls.”

“Oh, Hannibal, I wish I was dead and out of
the way! Then there would be one less to provide
for.”

“Dead and out of de way!” said Hannibal,
half indignantly; “dat's jest how to get into de
way. I'd be afeard of seein your spook whenever I
was alone. I had no comfort in New York arter
Massa Allen died, and was mighty glad to get
away even to Bushtown. And den Miss Edie and
all would cry dar eyes out, and couldn't do nothin.
Folks is often more in de way arter dey's dead and
gone dan when livin. Seein your sweet face around
ebery day, honey, is a great help to ole Hannibal.
It seems only yesterday it was a little baby face,
and we was all pretty nigh crazy over you.”

“I wish I had died then!” said Zell, passionately,
and hurrying away.

“Poor chile, poor chile! she takes it mighty
hard,” said innocent Hannibal.

She kept her room during the afternoon, pleading
that she did not feel well. It gave her pain to
be with her mother and Laura, now that she purposed
to leave them so abruptly, and she wished
to see nothing that would shake her resolution to
go as she had arranged. She wrote to Edith as
follows:

As the long twilight was deepening, Hannibal,
returning from the well with a pail of water, heard
the gate-latch click, and looking up, saw Zell hurrying
out with hat and shawl on, and having the
appearance of carrying something under her shawl.
He felt a little surprise at first, but then Zell was
so full of impulse, that he concluded,

“She's gwine to meet Miss Edie. We'se
all a-lookin and leanin on Miss Edie, Lor bress
her.”

But Zell was going to perdition.

Little later the stage brought tired Edith home,

but in better spirits than before, as she had realized
a somewhat fair sum for what she had sold, and
had been treated politely.

After taking off her things, she asked, “Where's
Zell?”

“Lying down, I think,” said Laura. “She
complained of not feeling well this afternoon.”

But Hannibal's anxious face in the door now
caught her attention, and she joined him at
once.

“Didn't you meet Miss Zell?” he asked in a
whisper.

“Meet her? no,” answered Edith, excitedly.

“Dat's quare. She went out with hat and
shawl on a little while ago. P'raps she's come
back, and gone up stairs again.”

Trembling so she could hardly walk steadily,
Edith hurried to her room, and there saw Zell's
note. Tearing it open, she only read the first line,
and then rushed down to her mother and Laura,
sobbing,

“Zell's gone.”

“Gone! Where?” they said, with dismayed
faces.

Edith's only reply was to suddenly look at her
watch, put on her hat, and dart out of the door. She
saw that there was still ten minutes before the evening
boat passed the Pushton landing, and remembered
that it was sometimes delayed. There was
a shorter road to the dock than the one through
the village, and this she took, with flying feet, and

a white but determined face. It would have been
a terrible thing for Van Dam to have met her then.
She seemed sustained by supernatural strength,
and, walking and running by turns, made the mile
and a half in an incredibly short space of time.
As she reached the top of the hill above the
landing, she saw the boat coming into the
dock. Though panting and almost spent, again
she ran at the top of her speed. Half-way down
she heard the plank ring out upon the wharf.

“Stop!” she called. But her parched lips uttered
only a faint sound, like the cry of one in a
dream.

A moment later, as she struggled desperately
forward, there came, like the knell of hope, the
command,

“All aboard!”

“Oh, wait, wait!” she again tried to call, but her
tongue seemed paralyzed.

As she reached the commencement of the long
dock, she saw the lines cast off. The great wheels
gave a vigorous revolution, and the boat swept
away.

She was too late. She staggered forward a few
steps more, and then all her remaining strength
went into one agonized cry,

“Zell!”

And she fell fainting on the dock.

Zell heard that cry, and recognized the voice.
Taking her hand from Mr. Van Dam's arm, she
covered her face in sudden remorseful weeping.

But it was too late.

She had left the shelter of home, and ventured
out into the great pitiless world on nothing better
than Van Dam's word. It was like walking a rotten
plank out into the sea.

Zell was lost!